John Prine (born October 10, 1946, in Maywood, Illinois) is an American country/folk singer-songwriter who has achieved widespread critical (and some commercial) success since the early 1970s.
Biography
Prine is the son of William Prine and Verna Hamm. It is widely believed but untrue that his grandfather played guitar with Merle Travis. Prine himself started playing guitar at age 14. He was a postman for five years and served in the Army before beginning his musical career in Chicago.
Prine emerged in 1971 with a highly-acclaimed debut album titled John Prine. He and friend Steve Goodman had each been stars in the Chicago folk scene before being "discovered" by Kris Kristofferson. The album included his signature songs "Illegal Smile", "Sam Stone", and the folk and country standard "Paradise." The album also included "Hello In There", a song about aging that was later covered by numerous artists and "Far From Me," a lonely waltz about lost love for a waitress that Prine later said was his favorite of all his songs. The album received many positive reviews, and some hailed Prine as "the next Dylan." Bob Dylan himself appeared unannounced at one of Prine's first New York City club appearances, anonymously backing him on harmonica.
Later albums include Sweet Revenge (1973), containing such fan favorites as "Dear Abby", "Grandpa Was A Carpenter" and "Christmas In Prison", and Common Sense (1975), with "Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard". The latter album was Prine's first to be charted in the US top 100 by Billboard, reflecting growing commercial success. Many veteran Prine fans view the release of 1978's Bruised Orange as a creative highpoint. The Steve Goodman-produced album gave listeners songs such as "The Hobo Song", "Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone" and the title track showing that he could capture the human condition as easily as writing politically-inspired anthems.
In 1991, Prine released the Grammy Award-winning The Missing Years, his first collaboration with producer and Heartbreakers bassist Howie Epstein. The title song records Prine's humorous take on what Jesus did in the unrecorded years between his childhood and his ministry. In 1995, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings was released, another collaboration with Epstein. Prine followed in 1999 with In Spite of Ourselves, which was unusual for him in that it contained only one original song - the rest were covers of classic country songs - and all were duets with well-known female country vocalists, including Lucinda Williams and Iris DeMent. (John referred to them as his "favorite girl singers".)
In early 1998, Prine was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent surgery to remove the tumor followed by radiation therapy.. Some of Prine's listeners believe that the surgery has added "gravel" to his voice. In 2003, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting by the UK's BBC Radio 2 and that same year was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The following year saw his classic "Sam Stone" covered by Laura Cantrell for the Future Soundtrack for America compilation.
In 2005, Prine released his first all-new offering since In Spite of Ourselves, the album Fair & Square, which tended toward a more laid-back, acoustic approach than, for example, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings. The album contains songs such as "Safety Joe", about a man who has never taken any risks in his life, and also "Some Humans Ain't Human", Prine's protest piece on the album, which talks about the ugly side of human nature and includes a quick shot at President George W. Bush. Fair and Square won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. The album contains original songs plus two covers: A.P. Carter's "Bear Creek Blues" and Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons."
Prine received the Artist of the Year award at the Americana Music Awards on September 9th, 2005. The award was accepted in his name by awards host and long-time friend Billy Bob Thornton.
His song "Storm Windows" appears on 4 CDs and is track seven on all four of the CDs.
Discography
John Prine (1971), Atlantic - SD-8296; 2-72, #154 (includes "Angel from Montgomery")
Diamonds in the Rough (1972), Atlantic - SD-7240; 10-72, #148
Sweet Revenge (1973), Atlantic - SD-7274; 11-73, #135
Common Sense (1975), Atlantic
Prime Prine: The Best Of John Prine (1976), Atlantic
Bruised Orange (1978), Asylum
Pink Cadillac (1979), Asylum
Storm Windows (1980), Asylum
Aimless Love (1984), Oh Boy
German Afternoons (1986), Oh Boy
John Prine Live (1988), Oh Boy
The Missing Years (1991), Oh Boy
Great Days: The John Prine Anthology (1993), Rhino
A John Prine Christmas (1993), Oh Boy
Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (1995), Oh Boy
Live on Tour (1997), Oh Boy
In Spite of Ourselves (1999), Oh Boy
Souvenirs (2000), Oh Boy
Fair & Square (2005), Oh Boy
Standard Songs For Average People (2007), Oh Boy - with Mac Wiseman
External links
Official John Prine Website
John Prine Shrine - Official John Prine fan site
A Pictorial Trip to John Prine's Paradise, KY
A Literary Evening with John Prine and Ted Kooser. March 9, 2005. The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress.
Interview with John Prine - KyndMusic, September 2005
1971 Radio Interview with John Prine on WGLD Oak Park - fr JOHNPRINE.NET
John Prine at the Internet Movie Database
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 346/1000000
Post-expand include size: 3620/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 1505/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 1/500
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prine"
Categories: 1946 births | Living people | American country singers | American male singers | American country musicians | American folk singers | American singer-songwriters | Old Town School Of Folk Musicians | People from Cook County, Illinois | Grammy Award winners | Cancer survivors | Chicago folk musiciansHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since March 2008
Views
Article
Discussion
Edit this page
History
Personal tools
Log in / create account
if (window.isMSIE55) fixalpha();
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Search
Interaction
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact Wikipedia
Donate to Wikipedia
Help
Toolbox
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Printable version Permanent linkCite this page
Languages
Deutsch
Español
Svenska
This page was last modified on 10 August 2008, at 15:41.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
if (window.runOnloadHook) runOnloadHook();
